What is ray tracing, and how will it change games?

Algorithmia AI Generated Summary

What is ray tracing, and how will it change games.

 

Ray tracing explained: Why is this lighting technique so expensive?

Nvidia’s Ray tracing explained: Why is this lighting technique so expensive?

Nvidia’s RTX 2000 graphics cards introduced ray tracing to the world of gaming in the latter half of 2019, but today there are a variety of RTX and GTX cards that support it. The fancy new lighting technique is a serious resource hog, meaning that the more expensive and modern cards handle it best, but most Nvidia graphics cards from the past few years can take a crack at its real-time reflections and shadow effects.

But what is ray tracing? And is it really worth upgrading for?

Virtual photons

Graphics technology is usually hard to explain, but ray tracing is rather simple. It attempts to emulate the way light works in the real world. Instead of creating pre-designed, or “baked-in” lighting for scenes in games, ray tracing traces the path of simulated light. Or, rather, millions of simulated lights, or photons. The light bounces off objects as it moves and interacts with their properties. If it bounces from a glossy green surface, for instance, its hue may change.

That’s essentially how light works in real life. A particle of light bursts forth from its point of origin and travels along until it interacts with an object, at which point its path is determined by that object’s properties. It might be absorbed by a dense, dark object, or almost entirely reflected by a mirror.

Ray tracing’s fundamental similarity to real life makes it an extremely realistic 3D rendering technique, even making blocky games like Minecraft look near photo-realistic in the right conditions. There’s just one problem: It’s hard to simulate. Recreating the way light actually works in the world is complicated and resource intensive, requiring masses of computing power. Even Nvidia’s ray tracing rendering isn’t true ray tracing, whereby every point of light is simulated. Instead, it uses a number of smart approximations to deliver something that’s close to the same visual effect, but without being quite as taxing on the hardware.

Most ray tracing games now use a combination of traditional lighting techniques, typically called rasterization, and ray tracing on specific surfaces such as reflective puddles and metalwork. Battlefield V is a great example of that. You see the reflection of troops in water, the reflection of terrain on airplanes, and the reflection of explosions across a car’s paint. It’s possible to show reflections in modern 3D engines, but not at the level of detail shown in games like Battlefield V when ray tracing is enabled.

Ray tracing can also be leveraged for shadows to make them more dynamic and realistic looking. You’ll see that used to great effect in Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Read the Full Article at Digital Trends 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *